RAM with no memory modules on it, *****?

beany_bot · 7 Jan 2019 at 14:25

So having a dig around a newly acquired 2001 Pentium 4 machine and it has 4 sticks of RAM in it. Fair enough. Till I pulled them out and two look like this!?!? And yes, it won't boot without them! needs all 4 sticks, the two real one and then these two rogue impersonators. Anyone know anything about this?

Armageus · 7 Jan 2019 at 14:50

RDRAM - Continuity RIMMs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDRAM

Because of the way RDRAM channels worked essentially any empty slots needed a "terminator" to complete the channel

Vexr · 7 Jan 2019 at 16:15

Pentium 4 RDRAM, wow that takes me back.

TheMightyTen · 8 Jan 2019 at 15:35

Wow RIMMs there's a blast from the past, seems like aeons ago when RIMMing was all the rage :eek:

Toasty · 8 Jan 2019 at 17:06

I remember those bad boy RDRAM so expensive and had to buy in pairs, ram that actually needed heat-spreaders.

d_brennen · 8 Jan 2019 at 17:14

Ah the good old days of crushingly expensive RAM

beany_bot · 10 Jan 2019 at 15:04

d_brennen said:
Ah the good old days of crushingly expensive RAM

What... you mean 2018?

d_brennen · 10 Jan 2019 at 15:20

beany_bot said:
What... you mean 2018?

Adjusted for inflation and relative to how much you get, RAM ain't that bad

reef · 12 Jan 2019 at 13:31

Intel used to bundle two sticks of RDRAM away with early P4s as they were so unpopular and the RIMMs so expensive. Then there was the whole i820 issue when they tried to get the Pentium 3s onto RDRAM. The chipsets were unstable due to a MTH issue and it offered precisely zero improvement over SDRAM. The latency was pretty bad aswell on RDRAM if I remember correctly.

HeX · 21 Jan 2019 at 14:10

Serious blast from the past, haven't seen anyone talk about RIMMs in ages.

d_brennen · 21 Jan 2019 at 14:23

RAMBUS still exists as a patent troll, forcing prices up for us all :mad:

Silent_Scone · 21 Jan 2019 at 14:28

RD memory was ludicrously fast for the time but also ludicrously expensive. Actually, if most young users today opted for RD there'd be a lot of threads regarding the slow bootup times. Seems to be all people care about these days lol.

JasonM · 24 Jan 2019 at 19:51

In the garage I still have a 2.4Ghz P4 computer with some RamBus and Intel board, it dates back from around 2000.

HellDiverUK · 30 Jan 2019 at 13:33

Ah, reminds me of the superb ABit TH7-II. Ran it with a P4-1.8A and RDRAM. Think I had GeForce 256 in it?